Chapter 5 ~Raven
Raven walks briskly down the hall, calling out to her staff as she goes. They need to get this PPE on so that no one else is infected. They have masks and gloves, but this extra protection will go a long way to making her feel that the staff is safe.
Raven looks back and sees Master Chief Benson talking on his cell phone. He is a demanding man, but from her research she knows that he knows what he is doing. He downplayed his education by not butting in and calling himself Dr. Benson. His multiple PHD’s and training in infectious disease makes him the logical point person here, but she will not be shunted aside. Two of her staff have been exposed and are in isolation. They have mild fevers suggesting that the infection has taken hold.
Handing out the PPE She pulls hers on wanting to get back on the floor as soon as possible. Raven knew that Blade Benson would be hot. She googled him before he arrived expressive green eyes, muscular body, a neatly trimmed goatee at least in his last photo and obviously intelligent.
He was military and alpha male, so they were going to butt heads it was a fact. He was the first man in a long time to give her these kinds of tingles. She needed to keep her head in the game and get more information on this virus, and how to treat it before she lost two members of her staff.
She was the ice princess it shouldn’t be hard for her to keep her head in the game. But then there were those tingles.
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“How much have you been able to glean about the virus?” He asks standing outside of the isolation chamber containing patient zero.
“I read everything you sent over. That it appears to be a base of the Ebola virus crossed with an unknown virus protein to make it survive longer outside of the body. Spread by body fluids non-aerosol as of now and you are still learning. Not sure how it quite attaches to the body cells, and it is impervious to known anti-virals.” She takes a deep breath, trying not to think about her friends.
“Seventy percent kill rate, and high likelihood of mutation to aerosol if an anti-viral and vaccine are not developed.”
He nods, “Good work you are up to speed now, tell me about the infected employees.”
“One is a nurse she was stuck through the glove with a needle when trying to insert his IV line in the OR. The other is another Nurse he vomited on when he was admitted right into her face from the sounds of it.”
“Are they showing any symptoms?”
She stands there for a moment as the reality of what is happening sinks into it. There is a very high likelihood that the two women laying in isolation as friends of hers will not survive this.
“They are both showing low-grade fevers.”
He nods again. She can see the sympathy in his eyes behind his goggles. She tries to not to let it affect her, but it does make her feel better about this man. He came in with an attitude of authority, but that look in his eyes tells Raven that underneath all of that he understands the human toll of something like this.
“That is the first stage of infection. We haven’t known about this long, what we do know is classified but you and your team are being read in as a need to know. I need you to understand that none of what you learn in the next few hours or days can be shared. It is a matter of national security as well as we don’t need the mass panic that this information will cause if it gets out into the public.”
“You have my assurances that we can be trusted, and that no information will leak out from this team.”
He nods, “Then let’s start researching the confidential files, see what we can come up with.”
She follows him out of the patient rooms, and down the hall to the doctor’s office. Between the two of them they should be able to find a way to beat this virus.